Stems
by Eogrus
Summary: Vraska and Tamiyo investigate a crime
1. Chapter 1

Vraska was pressing against the wall, silently stalking her target, so flamboyantly brilliant before her.

"P-please, stop! I'll do anything you want!" begged the man on the floor.

"Do what I want!? You despicable mongrel! You think I am doing this because I want a weak minded agreement towards my will!? For that, here's another one!"

The Izzet madman then shoved another sandwich down the man's throat. It was filled with many bizarre spicy condiments, magically enhanced to be ardent in touch, which made the poor man cry bitter tears as he chewed. Vraska thought of the treatment barbaric, so she mentally took a note.

Suddenly, Tamiyo landed before then, in front of Vraska.

"Excuse me, do you mind helping me solve a case? I promise I'll pay you well for it."

"What is this!? A murderous gorgon of dubious Golgari-ness and an ugly moon-rabbit girl of otherworldly sandals!? Unacceptable!"

The madman then charged his gauntlets, motioning in twitching, violent motions for lightning to gather around him. A lot of the plasma went to machinery in his head, making his eyes glow an eerie blue light, and with a finger snap powerful and enormous bolts stroke everywhere, frying the sandwitch-consuming man alive and electrocuting the air around him intensely. Tamiyo created an aether bubble around herself and Vraska, who was reaching towards ancient sewer-swamps, subterranean parks and Golgari rot farms, pooling shadow-like, yet wild energy within herself, forming a reservoir on her internal organs. The madman kept throwing lightning around, giggling like a little boy and dancing to beats undecipharable to anyone but him, turning his back on them.

"I do not think he is even aware of us anymore" muttered Tamiyo.

Vraska said nothing, instead extending her hands calmly, letting the mana flow through her arms in torrents that felt like water long stagnated, now flowing in a river. With flowing, slow motions, the spell was released, and the twicthing Izzet stopped in his tracks, a black tree emerging from his mouth, roots erupting from his body in all directions and trapping his bleeding body to the ground. With some final, desesperate convulsions, the man was dead. Tamiyo undid the bubble, and cleared the air of stactic with simple circular motions of her fingers. Vraska grabbed her, staring straight at her eyes, but she remained unpetrified.

"Oh, I have made sure you could not turn me to stone. Sensible precautions, I suppose."

"You've nearly cost me my prize. Your proposal has to afford me a fortune if you wish to live."

"I assure you that you will be rewarded plenty."

Vraska's face was rather difficult to decipher for the soratami, but she seemed calmer.

"Meet me at sunset at Zonot One. Give me the details then."

She then walked away towards the madman corpse. She grabbed the head, trying to cut off the skull from the lower jaw with a knife.

"Do you require help with that?"

Vraska grunted. The head machinery fell from the Izzet's head, and sent one last powerful blast of eletricity up Vraska's leg. She twiched rigidly, her head tendrils flailing wildly while she gritted her teeth. The shock ended quickly, with fumes coming out of her skin.

"...yes."

While Tamiyo had been in post-Jace-Guildpact Ravnica for a while, she never ceased to be amazed at the inovations of the Simic. For example, that day papyrus-like anemones were created, emerging from the somber, swampy waters in buddles, each tentacle ending in an eye to cry gut-wrenching tears of unambiguous depression. Between them flew a devil-cockatoo-poodle, poking the eyes to make them cry more, grinning like a child bullying his/her sibling. It flew towards Tamiyo and poked at her ears and throwed putrid, mossy mud at her face, but she simply summoned a monstruous heron-like kami that devoured the evil abomination. It had many smaller wisps that resembled horrifically mutilated human faces, grinning inoccently. The kami flew through the air, sending the wisps to kiss the anemone eyes, which quickly brightened up and cried tears of joy, filling the water with curative properties. Tamiyo thought this to be very endearing.

"Wow, that's some impressive biomancy!" said a clueless elf-frog-minotaur-owlfolk, "You should put your talents into practise here!"

"Thank you, but I really cannot. Besides, I cannot stand anything mixed with poodles."

Just then, Vraska arrived, walking through the stagnant, algae filled waters. Poddle-tegu-eels barked at her, making Tamiyo roll her eyes. Vraska seemingly smirked, empathising with her distate of the creatures.

"So, what is it that you desire?"

"I would like your help to solve a case. I will pay you well regardless of the outcome."

"Any particular relevance for enlisting me?"

"Well, to start with, you are a planeswalker, so this will be less awkward. Second, you are an assassin, so you are probably the person who can relate best to this case. Thirdly, you are a murder victim, so-"

"How do you know that?" answered the gorgon, a nerve subtly having been striken.

"Well, it's a long and interesting story..."

Tamiyo wanders into a bar. She approches a drunk Azorius arrester.

"Excuse me, could you inform me of the Undercity Sweep controversy? There is a very urgent aspect I fear you might have overlooked, and this negligence may be endangering lives!"

The man laughs.

"You're a funny lady! I bet you have mittens in your nostrils!"

Then he falls down, unconscious. Tamiyo inhales deeply, drawing mana from sewers and streets puddles, which is enough for her to open his mind. Most of it is blocked by golden light barriers, except a lower section of his memories, which actually is not only open, but has inviting mental signals. The man is urging her to inspect, Tamiyo considers. She looks at the memories of the containment, and has what she needs. She closes the mind, even helping to block off some of the man's more unpleasant experiences deeper in the subconscious.

"Hey pretty, want to rock my world?" says a rock elemental, rubbing it's dirty, moldy hands on it's well sculpted body to emphasise this rapist request.

"I apologise, but I do not think our union would be anything less than extremely disturbing."

"Speciest! My lackeys, seize this evil woman and beat the hatred out of her!"

Before Tamiyo can explain that she simply has no interest in hookups, several fiery imps appear, all bearing the Rakdos signet. Tamiyo decides that it is a smarter idea to just leave the place, so she calmly walks out of the bar. The imps sorround her, firing fire balls at her, slut-shaming her all the while, which she merely responds with redirecting.

Unfortunately, several of the insults and fire balls hit other bar patrons, one of them a goblin Gruul shaman with a protective skin crust of dried bloody snot, formed into thick plates, who summons a massive dragon into the bar, it's head blocking the entrance and devouring the imps, tables, beer cups and the clients' dinner. It locks it's eyes on Tamiyo's giving an expression of pure, noxious hatred, as if the soratami had wronged the reptile a thousand times, and fires a lightning bolt from it's maw, that hits the rock elemental, that redirects it at Tibalt. The devil screams, less than amused at his burned flesh, but he quickly recovers and grins maniacly at Tamiyo.

So do most other patrons, and Tamiyo quickly realises that everyone is mad at her, and that being cut into pieces, eaten and violated in way possible order is the most merciful thing they have in mind. She inhales, calming herself, letting any hint of nervousness flow away into the air. It's now a matter of who will fire first. This enrages the patrons, all desiring a real fight, and all fire at once: lightning bolts, flames, rocks, boiling blood, metal, malevolent red energy and cursing emotional auras all fill the air. Tamiyo only has to redirect a few, as most thankfully destroy the other clients, and make them enraged at the provokers, going for their blood instead.

In a few minutes, the slaughterfest leaves everyone dead, except ironically Tamiyo, Tibalt, and the unconscious Azorius arrester.

"Can I keep him?" asks the red skinned planeswalker in a mocking manner, pointing at the Azorius arrester.

"Anyways, this case I am asking relates to finding a murderer."

Before Vraska could ask, Tamiyo opened a pocket dimension, and a magically preserved carcasse descended, floating above the murky water. It belongs to a vedalken, with an Izzet uniform, his face brutally ripped apart by what seemed to be claws, and a gaping wound in his chest.

"I am doing this as a favour to a dear friend of mine."

Vraska looked intently at the corpse, curiousity filling her mind.

"How do you know it wasn't me who did this?" she asked, testing the scholar.

"I suspected that, but I have examined your methods and tendencies. Besides, I know you were not here when this person died. You planeswalked from Innistrad yesterday, seven hours after this man was murdered."

Vraska stared in shock at her. This woman could by all means just throw her in jail anytime she wanted!

"This... obsession, of yours, is going to cost you dearly one of these days."

"I know, but what is life worth if we cannot know the truth to it's fullest?"

Vraska didn't retort. Instead, she examined the wounds, touching them softly.

"I've never seen anything like this before. The closest thing I can think of are Rakdos murders, and even then it doesn't have the same feel to them. No passion at all. If anything, it feels like a calculated murder, like my style, yet there's these pointless mutilations."

She inspected closer, jerking her head upwards violently.

"What is it?" asked Tamiyo.

"Where was the corpse found?"

It was midnight. Yet the alley was surprisingly bright, magical lamps forming several multicoloured processions. Some vendors were still working, but most shops had been closed with wards.

"This way!" Tamiyo indicated.

She touched a brick wall, and it formed a cave-like entrance. It was quickly followed by some stairs, illuminated by soft blue lights. They lead into a laboratory, filled with electrically-powered machinery: a machination that looked like a massive pair of magnets, several turbines, weird producers. Some of the machines were broken, and had small flowering plants growing from them.

"This was his laboratory. His pupil informed me of his death yesterday, after appearently following a flash of light."

Vraska examined one of the machines with plants.

"The plants were spellcasted into growing from the machines, and some have been growing in blood, so I think the killer created them. The plants aren't aberrations, so it's not a Simic work, and I don't think the Gruul or the Golgari would be so gentle. That leaves Selesnya or Gateless. Give me the body."

Tamiyo made the dead vedalken appear again. Vraska inspected the wounds again.

"Something is very wrong here."

"What do you mean?"

"These wounds... I have to compare them."

"Compare them to what?"

Just then, a noxious presence filled the air. It sorrounded them, and so Vraska and Tamiyo stood back to back, channeling mana. The presence felt like a thick fog, yet it was invisible.

"Show yourself" commanded Vraska.

The fog smirked. Tamiyo swore to have seen a disturbing grin, that made her feel sick, fighting the hardest she could to keep her stomachal contents within. Vraska had little patience for this, so she casted entangling vines that erupted from the ground. If it was a creature, it'd be capture, if a spell it'd be destroyed.

"Is it gone?" asked Tamiyo.

The presence was no longer there, but both knew that Vraska's spell had nothing to do with that. The thing left on it's own free will.

"We have to get out of here."

To be continued... 


	2. Conclusion

Vraska and Tamiyo were now wandering through the undercity sewers. Tamiyo floated just above the the damp waters, with a blue light in front of her.

"I feel some sort of strange sensation, like listening to a whimsical song" Tamiyo said.

"Yes, you should."

Vraska suddenly stopped. She clawed at the wall, the sound echoing through the sewers. Before she could ask, Tamiyo felt a slimy hand on her shoulder, and turns around to see an imp. It grinned mischieviously, it's pearly black skin reflecting the blue light, the wing membranes almost rendered blue. It had rather curious green eyes like small esmeralds, with small chartreuse vortices glowing within, which Tamiyo inspected closely, touching them. The imp was less than amused, trying to claw her face off, unsucessfully as the claws somehow passed through her, as if it was a cloud.

"Vraska, I think I found a relevant clue."

Tamiyo immobilised the imp, magical threads tying the limbs, and brought it down to Vraska. She noticed the eyes, and grabbed the imp's neck, steadying the head as she ripped off the left eye with her claws. The creature screamed in agony, and Tamiyo felt somewhat sorry for it.

"Pity for the imp, though."

Vraska ripped the other eye off, and threw the imp to the water. The empty sockets formed normal, red eyes.

"Oh."

Suddenly, in what could be best described as a "stagnated wind", the presence returned. The imp flied away as Vraska quickly hid the "eyes" in a pocket, snarling at the threat that invaded the sewer. That time it was thick, like a dense myst, of a sickly yellow hue, possing a strangely pleasant aroma, like rosemary. Tamiyo focused on the putrid, brown, green and sickly yellow water of the sewer, feeling the azure mana form threads on her fingers. She materialised them into what appeared to be a spider web of cyan light which began to expand rapidly, until it was bigger than herself. The fog tried to pass through the holes in the web, but instead it got stuck in it, parts of it's essences glueing to the web and becoming inseperable from it. As if noticing this, the air began moving frenetically, as if the fog was trying to escape, to get away from this web. As if out of nowhere, a set of cat-like teeth materialised in the air and bit at the web, getting stuck in it too, but shaking Tamiyo's composture and concentration enough that the web weakened Another set of teeth materialised, but Vraska made vines grow from the walls, which shot them away.

"I think you can kill it this time" Tamiyo said, "I made it more corporeal."

Vraska nodded silently, and made plants grow from the sewer water, grasping at the fog. The vines began encircling around a place, as if strangling an animal's neck. The teeth barked and whined desesperately, biting at the stagnant sewer air, and at the vines, suceeding in cutting some of them. Tamiyo realised she needed to buy Vraska some time, so she splashed water at the monstruousity, confusing and slowly it down. Vraska inhaled deeply, and a black cloud formed, from it emerging an assassin. He did not looked very pleased with finding himself knees deep in sewer water.

"Kill it" said Vraska in a commanding voice.

The disgusted man nodded, and stabbed the fog between the teeth. The thing howled in pain, before the fog dismantled and dissipated. It was dead.

"It wasn't the killer" Vraska said, "It's teeth were cat-like, and whatever did it was not with such teeth. These gems, though..."

Vraska took them out of her pocket. They were now glowing in a cyan light, red swirls rotating inside of them.

"They feel like his wounds" Tamiyo said.

"Yes. Whatever it was, it was related to these."

The nightsky was cold, yet luminous, the light of the Moon and of the highest spires illumining the city. A lone bat flapped it's wings in the pale light, before a vine struck it's wing, violently ripping it's patagium. The bat fell helpless on Vraska's hand. She extended the bat to Tamiyo, but she nodded calmly.

"I am subsisting mostly on magic now."

"Suit yourself."

The bat was barely masticated, simply swallowed whole.

"So, what brings you to waste so much time after this case?"

"Rafteres was a dear friend of a very dear friend of mine. She now works for Jace, so she has asked me to solve this case for her."

Vraska did not say anything, but Tamiyo knew she was rather curious about this. She sat on the rooftop, watching the Moon with a distant, almost mournful look on her face. Vraska joined her, sitting down as well.

"It is a bit complicted, really. I could have hired someone to do this case, but it is a bit personal, you know."

"And you're curious to see who it was."

"Indeed, indeed I am."

Vraska stared down at the city, looking at the magical lights, flickering in calmer, less intense tones.

"I would be lying if I wasn't curious as well. But you'll pay me regards."

"Yes, rest assured, you will be paid."

Vraska smirked. Tamiyo thought she was more approachable now, less in a serial killer mood and more in a nurturing, "elder" mood, kind of motherly-but-not-really. She knew she wasn't in in need of particularly high defenses, not unless the payment was void. Both women stared down at the lights beneath, before preparing themselves for sleep. As they watched, Tamiyo felt another presence, someone watching in a mournful, sad way, but it disappeared before she could examine it.

And besides, she felt sleepy. Really, really sleepy...

Vraska woke up slowly. She and Tamiyo were tied to a pole, her eyes adorned with some sort of magical lenses.

They were in a Selesnya temple garden.

"Tamiyo, wake up!" snarled Vraska, less angrily and more "oh, this again" way.

Tamiyo slowly opened her eyes, but she quickly realised her predicament. How could her guard have slipped so much? She reached to a nearby fountain, but it was rather lacking, only enough to break Vraska's lenses. The gorgon quickly made work of the ropes, making moss rot them into being breakable simply by shaking them off.

"I doubt they were stupid enough to think this would stop us" muttered Vraska.

"Indeed."

Tamiyo levitated, watching the temple garden from above.

"I never thought Selesnya could be this empty."

"That's because it usually isn't."

Vraska sniffed the air, feeling the stench of decay so alien to Selesnya. She motioned Tamiyo to follow, guiding herself through the maze-like garden while Tamiyo flew above. The gorgon already knew what it was, and while the moonfolk gasped in shock, she didn't bat an eye when she saw the tens, if not hundreds, of Selesnya corpses, neatly piled into three piles: one for humans, loxodon and dryads, another for centaurs, and another for wolves and other animals, the latter less organised than the former too, many corpses having rolled down the formation. The corpses already began to display maggots, eating away at the recently rotten flesh, but more importantly they all beared the same alien wounds as the vedalken.

"Help..." said a muffled, weak voice from the second pile.

Tamiyo imediately descended, pulling at the visible moving centaur leg, Vraska reluctanctly helping. Pulling with some effort, they revealed a gravely wounded young centaur, his face still largely intact but with one of the wounds in his right cheek, while many adorned his flanks, some very deep and exposing his ribs and part of the organs. Tamiyo, until then puzzled, now understood more or less how the wounds were made: it was basically as if the flesh was bubbling in a very well controlled manner from the inside out.

"Who did this?" she asked.

"The s-squirrel... the squirrel v-va..."

The centaur then fainted. As if on clue, what appeared to be a swelling formed on his calf, slowly increased until it began to bleed, then it bursted like a bubble, albeit slowly, the process of the flesh opening being slow, and eventually ending up with a shallow cove on the flesh. The centaur was beyond salvation, so Tamiyo simply laid him with the rest.

"I think the centaur was too delusional to be of any help" said Vraska.

"I do not know, I have heard of a plane where they are humanoid rodents."

"If such a plane exists, I pity them."

"I thought your guild believed in the cycles of nature?"

"Yes, and that's precisely why a plane of rodents would fall to any stronger force."

"Oh, I don't know, I've done a good enough job on these poor sods, haven't I?" said a raspy, dark male voice from among the trees.

Vraska turned to the voice's direction, inhaling deeply. Her arms felt the surge flowing through her.

"Tired of playing games?"

"No, not at all. I just couldn't sit iddly, seeing you mock me" said the voice, now in an angry, very hurt tone.

Vraska scoffed, and guided the bushes away with mana. The malefactor hid alongside the moving bushes, seemingly anticipating this move. Tamiyo, however, did notice white fur.

"In the left!"

Vraska nodded and stared intently at the bushes, searching for any hint of the antagonist. She caught one red, albino eye, but for some reason it did not led to it's owner's petrification. If anything, it seemed almost as if the eye was reflecting the gorgon curse at her, so she momentarily looked away, loosing tract.

"Over there!" shouted Tamiyo, conjuring a spell to immobilise the common enemy.

Just as Vraska turned, the agressor revealed himself, jumping at her. It was, indeed, an anthropomorphic squirrel, fur white as the full Moon, dressed in little more than a modesty toga, awkwardly vested against the massive wing membranes that stretched from limb to limb. The eyes clearly indicated he was an albino, now crimson in glow, while his mouth was open, revealing large, dangerous incivors with deep grooves, oozing a green, foul looking liquid. Before he could realise his attack, however, Tamiyo blew him away with a gust of wind. The gust went through his patagia, blowing him up into the ground like a broken kite, making him fall on his back. He whimpered a bit, making Vraska scoff.

"Like I said, you're doomed."

This made the squirrel angry, as if a switched had been pulled, and he rose up, bearing his incivors. He jumped on Vraska, who desesperately rose him up in the air, avoiding being touched by his palms or by his teeth. Tamiyo descended, touching his head. She focused, and explored his mind.

A forest burns, the deep green quickly fading to the orange and gold of the flames. As the trees fall, so do the houses of the squirrelfolk. Mareves stares at the destruction of the forest. It makes the process less painful, though the needles still pierce painfully, and the work of the elders still feels violating. For hours liquids upon liquids have been injected in his blood, feeling like hands groping his insides, caressing them in all ways that are wrong. The elders themselves are now just chanting meaningless words, words that do not sooth or increase the pain or the wrongness, just swirl the contents of this ritual, just make his blood pulse the potions around faster, just makes them touch and lick his insides more vividly, more like real hands. Tears run down Mareves' eyes, mourning what it almost feels like lost inoccence.

Suddenly, the elders stop, and Maklrt, the chubiest, extends his arms, palms faced towards the ground as he stomps the ground frenetically.

"Oh Ancient One, oh One of the Earth, black and fertile, oh One of the dark loam, bless at last my nephew, bless him for he is anathema to the lit white sky, bless him for he is anathema for the dry white sand, bless him for he is anathema to the pale white gaze of the Moon!"

He then crouches and forcefully clashes his hands on the floor, inhaling and exhaling madly until his eyes are red and his words are nothing but incoherent sounds, foaming purple saliva. He then jumps on Mareves, who screams on top of his lungs as the hands grasp his shoulders, and more fluids are shot within. More so, a thick, dark presence is felt within, twisting and turning the flesh. His body flails and contorts widly as Maklrt withraw, the brown fur being quickly replaced by nascent white fur, the incivors falling off and being quickly replaced by new ones, sharper and with grooves on them, the skin on and between the limbs bubbling and expanding as a membrane is born. The eyes cry tears of blood, washing away the warm hazel for a crimson glow, the cries become raspy and thicker as his voice is not his anymore's, but something else's. His blood flow accelerates, feeling as if the flesh is going to explode at any moment.

He rolls franticly on the floor, blind and confused, his limbs flailing widly, until the heart stops, and so do his arms and legs - or, rather, wings. The heart begins it's beat anew, and stronger this time, all the potions and fluids now bound to his flesh, now him. He is alive -more so than ever in fact -, he breathes, and above all he is a vampire.

The new vampire rises, away from his homeworld, Glirodisaea. He witnesses another forest on fire, this time Jund's death world.

Tamiyo withrawed, overwhelmed by that information. She rubs her arms, feeling unspeakable senses of wrongness. Mareves is still as a statue, allowing Vraska to throw him away. He fell on the ground, and broke into whimpers again. Vraska kept her distance this time, approaching a blank staring Tamiyo.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yes, I am fine."

She extended her hand to Vraska's forehead, exchanging the memories. Vraska stared in shock at the still rolling and whimpering squirrelfolk, conforting himself by hidding his head in the membranes.

"Well, you have helped me find the murderer, so I suppose I shall pay you now" Tamiyo said, conjuring a bag of gold.

Vraska nodded, grabbing the gold sack and guarding it away. She approached the still whimpering Mareves, touching the back softly. The now pitiful vampire squirrelfolk didn't attempt to fight back, keeping rolled up as his sobs dried out.

"I too understand these feelings. They will gnaw at your flesh, thriving in the void, until you embrace your strength. You are pitiful now, but you will forsake your pity, just as I have forsaken mine and risen in the Undercity."

"S-such words are easy to speak-"

"Because I've learned to make my words value more than the gold I carry. You've dealt with an Izzet and a Selesnya temple, I figure you're already strong, just not strong in the mind. We will aid you."

"We?"

"Yes, Tamiyo, or will you dishonour your friend's friend by not stopping his murderer?"

Tamiyo had a minor headache in regards to the logic of those statements, but she did feel that murder was inhumane, especially when she spent the best part of over a day hanging around with a serial killer.

"Yes, we will help you." 


End file.
